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I am Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I am also the editor of the academic journal The Latin Americanist.

Monday, March 30, 2015

I am at the British Political Studies Association conference in Sheffield, England. Today while attending panels, particularly a roundtable of PSA journal editors (the organization has 4 peer-reviewed journals) I was struck by the contrast to the U.S. Note that these thoughts are anecdotal and subject to change, and I am actually curious to see whether I continue to hold them.

First, there is a strong emphasis on methodological pluralism. In fact, the editors themselves made a point of that. You see much less of that in the main U.S.-based political science journals. In one panel, a speaker on far-right parties in Europe lamented the fact that there was too little connection between the European literature and the U.S. literature on parties because the former hadn't brought in that literature and the latter found datasets rather than going into the field.

Second, there is more emphasis on general relevance. The editor of Political Studies said he required authors to make very clear how their topic was relevant to academics globally (through theory, comparative analysis, etc.). You see much less of that in U.S. political science (esp. American politics). It made me think that when I present my own paper (on Wed.) I need to emphasize the theoretical angle since the topic is U.S.-Latin American relations (the importance of which in my own mind may be reflecting my own biases as a U.S. academic).

Third, the editor of the British Journal of Politics & International Relations noted that they are trying hard to make their journal accessible to policy makers. He said the biggest obstacle was the inability (unwillingess?) for authors to write in an accessible way. In U.S. political science we do talk about that (The Monkey Cage blog is a direct example) but journals are not oriented in that direction.

This all made me think too of how in the U.S. we are journal-obsessed to a degree that often leans toward some type of academic nationalism. We value U.S.-based journals far more than foreign ones, I think often with the assumption that they are less rigorous because they are foreign.

Friday, March 27, 2015

The Vatican is sending an emissary to the Summit of the Americas. Pietro Parolin had been the Vatican's ambassador to both Venezuela and Mexico. The Venezuelan opposition had in fact been asking for the Vatican to mediate with the government.

It can't hurt, as the Pope had helped with the negotiations between Cuba and the United States. With the first Latin American Pope, it is fascinating to see the political effect both on the region and on U.S.-Latin American relations.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

FAIR takes a very damning look at the recent report by the Colombian government on U.S. military personnel and contractors raping at least 54 Colombian children. Have you read about that story? Probably not.

Here's the deal. You don't refer to other people as Hitler or Stalin because it's cliche (same with Winston Churchill, which of course is an indirect reference to Hitler). That does slip out of people's mouths occasionally, and it's annoying. However, to refer to yourself as like Stalin, and talk about how he defeated Hitler, takes you to an entirely new level of rhetoric. That is where Nicolás Maduro went, even calling him "comrade."

In the South, as in much of the United States, the demographic train has left the station. For over a decade the region has been attractive to migrants leaving either a Latin American country or areas of the United States with weaker economies and/or higher costs of living. Our projections going out to 2040 show continued growth under virtually all assumptions, signaling a permanent shift in what had traditionally not been a destination for Hispanics. Using U.S. Census data and other sources to develop projections, the core of our argument is that as the cohort of older (65 years and over) Latinos grows in North Carolina, there will be concomitant political shifts. Children who are citizens will eventually become eligible to vote, legislative districts will be transformed, and Hispanic adults will be taking care of a growing elderly population.

The train imagery is intended to emphasize the point that this is a done deal. In this case, policy cannot overcome demographic realities.
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Farmers, unable to sustain themselves due to the removal of subsidies and the arrival of competition from US agri–corporations, found the burgeoning market for marijuana and poppies their only avenue to surviving on the land. The army of the urban unemployed gave the cartels a deep pool from which to recruit foot soldiers, and the miserably paid (and eminently corruptible) police and military provided the muscle with which to protect their interests.The spread of everyday crime — aided by the rapid declension and corruption of local police forces — demoralized civil society, and provided a climate within which grander forms of criminality would flourish.

The adoption of free trade, and the deeper integration of the Mexican economy with that of the United States, dramatically increased cross-border traffic, making it far easier to insert narcotics into the stream of northward–bound commodities. Some NAFTA rules were of particular help: because maquiladoras were exempt from tariffs and subject to only minimal inspections, Mexican smugglers began buying up such factories to use as fronts for shipping cocaine.

Narcotrafficking had formerly been integrated into the PRI corporatist state, an under-the-table equivalent of labor, peasant, and business organizations. As such it was subject to a certain degree of regulatory control, and to unofficial taxation, in return for the de facto licensing of smuggling (the plaza system). The state’s abandonment of this form of corporatist inclusion contributed to the independent growth and power of organized crime syndicates.

The quibble I have is that although the end of the one-party is mentioned, it's not given enough attention. The article is really focused on criticizing U.S. policy, and the PRI's downfall does not match that theme.

This is important because it raises the question of whether the "drug wars" would have evolved in the same manner if the PRI had retained hegemonic control of the state. After all, the PRI did keep a lid on drug-related violence even through shock therapy and the implementation of NAFTA. Once the PRI's grip was released, political power vacuums opened up and drug traffickers quickly moved in. Then the free flow of cross-border exchanges made it easy to expand.

Either way, there are no happy conclusions. Free trade isn't going anywhere, and Mexico is a multi-party state. Both are good for Drug Trafficking Organizations.
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Saturday, March 21, 2015

Book royalties of academic monographs are usually something people joke about because they are so low (unless you are Thomas Piketty!). But I noticed something today that got me thinking more about the state of the industry and the relationship between the press and the author.

In 2010 I co-edited a book on the Bachelet government at the University Press of Florida with Silvia Borzutzky. Today I received the royalty notice, which said I earned $30 (hence the joking) but could not receive a check until it reached $150. All presses have some minimum, though that seemed fairly high.

This means there are quite a few authors who have earned royalties but have not reached the $150 threshold, so UPF keeps the money. Unless there is a miraculous jump in sales, I will never see that money, which seems unfair in principle regardless of how small an amount we're talking about. If you add up all the authors, I would think it is not an insignificant amount.

On the other hand, I am all too aware of the precarious state of university presses. There is administrative cost associated with processing royalties, and a razor-thin profit margin at least potentially makes that a loss for the press if the amount is too low. That is, the press is not making enough money on the book to merit paying someone to deal with the processing.

I figure other presses will also start increasing those minimums. I suppose I would too if I were in their position. The benefit to the author for academic monographs is related to his/her own job, not to profit. In my case, for example, that book contributed to my promotion from Associate to Full Professor in 2012. Now what I'm doing is helping to subsidize the press, if only very modestly.

Friday, March 20, 2015

Kenneth Coleman has an AmericasBarometer article on Nicaraguan support for a canal. The results are largely positive--people believe it will create jobs and help the economy. The negative side is what you might expect, as there is concern about the environment and opposition to the state expropriating property to build it.

One thing I found interesting is that in the U.S. the main issue raised in the media is about the Chinese role, but that does not matter to Nicaraguans. They don't share our paranoia. There was not a specific question about it, but there was the option of choosing sovereignty or "other" with regard to perceived problems.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

What we end up with are questions about the criteria for not being on the list. If we hold Cuba to the same standard as the rest of the world, it clearly shouldn't be on there. If we hold Cuba strictly to the stated criteria, then it should be on there along with many U.S. allies. The fact that North Korea was removed and Cuba is still on there makes no sense at all according to the criteria. In other words, the criteria don't matter.

The real answer, of course, is that politics will determine whether a country is on there. So we can argue all we want, but Cuba will be removed, and in the near future.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

There was a hearing today in the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs about Iran and Latin America. The subcommittee is chaired by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, which tells you all you need to know about its ideological orientation. It is rabidly alarmist, and some of the testimony reflects that. Michael Shifter provides the only voice of reason:

It would further be a mistake to base a policy course merely on speculation and
conjecture. It is important to adhere to the highest standards of evidence in
assessing Iran’s role and what the US should do in response. Otherwise, there is a
risk that policies could end up being counterproductive and only strengthening
Iran’s influence in the region. Without ample evidence—and now it appears to be
scant—we should not find ourselves panicked by a specter that does not exist.

I don't trust the Iranian government at all, but given the U.S. history of overstating threats and overreaction, I need concrete evidence, certainly much more than Gates' statement about "They're opening a lot of offices and a lot of fronts behind which they interfere in what is going on in some of these countries." I need a lot more than that.

I guess I should be glad that there has been a ton written about Latin America and Iran, but thus far the United States has not done anything stupid. The bar in that regard is low.
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I'm quoted in this Guardian article about the Venezuelan government's full page ad in the New York Times, which is a letter criticizing U.S. policy (here is the full text, though it is in Spanish). It's as overblown as you would expect, saying the sanctions mean the U.S. is trying to govern Venezuela by decree, whatever that means. Despite its venue, I see the message aimed more at Venezuelans (i.e. Maduro is speaking out on behalf of the nation) than at the U.S., though perhaps Nicolás Maduro thinks people in the U.S. will voice their concerns about the sanctions (as this professor did on a plane!).

Unfortunately, this adds up to a lot of pointless hot air on both sides. The U.S. keeps saying this is all about the Venezuelan elections later this year, I keep wondering how that connection works.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Estimates by financial analysts regarding annual inflation in Brazil for 2015 have once again increased, from 7.77 percent to 7.93 percent this week, according to the latest Focus Survey, released by the Central Bank. According to the survey analysts also see deterioration in the country’s GDP and industrial production, a devaluation of the country’s currency and a decrease in foreign investments this year.

GDP going down, inflation going up, foreign investment going down. Current estimates show better results for 2016, but that's cold comfort for Rousseff right now. Her approval is down sharply, but it can also move up quickly if things improve. It seems for now that she just needs to slog through the rest of 2015. Impeachment seems unlikely in the absence of evidence against Rousseff herself in the Petrobras scandal, and even evidence against her while she was in charge of it wouldn't amount to an impeachable offense as president. It would, in fact, merit a no-confidence vote, but in a presidential system no such thing exists.
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Monday, March 16, 2015

I was interviewed in this NPR story by Lourdes Garcia-Navarro on the protests in Brazil. She wanted to look at it from a regional perspective. My take is that the end of the commodity boom is putting tremendous pressure on governments that have maintained high spending. Governments have to adjust expectations (which is what I think has happened over time in Bolivia) or lose elections. What I didn't get a chance to talk about, though, is the role of the opposition. Where it is poorly organized those governments on the left have more leeway. Dilma Rousseff is in a better position because the opposition has become more organized but she just won an election.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

The 2015 conference of the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies (SECOLAS) is done, and once again it was a great time. I co-presented a paper with my dad on political demography (focusing on Allende's Chile and Chavez's Venezuela) which was the first time we've done so despite a bunch of co-authoring. It's a great group of people here. On Friday after the banquet there was an event at a beer garden for graduate students (who are an important part of SECOLAS) to have a chance to chat with professors in an informal setting.

This year it was in Charleston, but next year we're planning on Cartagena, Colombia in mid-March. So you need to be there.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Here is some truly wonderful paranoia from Telesur, which may well reflect the basic outlook of Nicolás Maduro. It's a tour de force of conspiracy theories. The United States, it seems, is just about to launch some sort of covert military action against Venezuela, as things look similar to 1964 when LBJ expanded the U.S. presence in Vietnam. We know this too because, among other things, the United States intentionally bombed the Maine so it could invade Cuba in 1898. It also likely planned 9/11. Europe might join in as well, though I am not entirely clear why. I was also disappointed that the JFK assassination was not mentioned.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

--several people pointed out that certain language is just necessary from a legal standpoint to enforce these types of laws. I will concede that but argue that it still matters. What we're saying, then, is that we have to call corruption in Venezuela (or any other country, or even certain people within countries) a national security threat that is an emergency, but in fact no one actually thinks that. At the same time, though, U.S. officials were quick to compare this situation to Iran and Syria. If you want an argument about why Venezuela is a threat, read Juan Nagel here, but I am totally unconvinced.

--Frank Mora, who not long ago was in the policy world, said I was wrong about seeing it as connected to Cuba. He has more insight into this than me, but it's hard for me to view this as disconnected from domestic politics. There are plenty of things going on that the general public does not know, but aside from domestic politics I can't see how this is a useful tool for the Obama administration in the region.

--if we reject domestic politics, what do we have left? Again, sending signals of some sort. Officials say the following:

They’re hoping the sanctions will send a signal to Venezuelan officials as the country prepares to host a national election later this year.

It's not clear to me what signals are really being sent. The intent apparently is to convince the Venezuelan government to run clean elections, but how does sanctioning seven specific people actually achieve that? It can serve as a warning that more people will be targeted, but it still doesn't explain how this would have any impact on the elections.

--what about regionally? Does this send a signal to the region that will help the United States? I tend to think that this sort of action with this sort of language attached to it will make it even more difficult for already wary Latin American leaders to speak up, because they'll be seen as supporting U.S. policy.

I am just having a difficult time seeing how this particular policy choice advances U.S. interests, stated or otherwise. And don't say oil--the funny thing is that trade continues apace regardless of these disputes.
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Monday, March 09, 2015

President Obama today issued a new Executive Order (E.O.) declaring a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela.

Say what? Whether or not you support the sanctions, there is simply no way to argue this with a straight face because it is so demonstrably false. The United States needs to declare a national emergency because of corruption in Venezuela? Obviously not. Venezuelan corruption constitutes an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to U.S. national security. Obviously not.

So why is Obama doing it? My main reaction is that he has prioritized Cuba talks (which are a legacy thing) and he figures going overboard with Venezuela will help overcome resistance. I doubt he or anyone in his administration actually sees Venezuela as a threat.

Here are some examples of countries/people similarly targeted. It's a reminder of how emergency powers can be so abused that the terms "emergency" and "threat" lose their meaning entirely.

Update: I've now had several people tell me this language is just necessary for implementation. I don't think that changes much, though--words matter even if they're just there for bureaucratic reasons. Words send signals.
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Jeff Colgan of Brown University analyzed militarized interstate disputes in 170 countries between 1945 and 2001 and found that countries where net oil export revenues constitute over 10 percent of GDP were among the most violent states in the world. Such petrostates showed a remarkable propensity for militarized interstate disputes on average and engaged in militarized conflicts about 50 percent more often than non-petrostates in the post-World War II era. Examples include Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez expelling their U.S. ambassadors, Venezuela’s mobilization for war against Colombia and Iran backing Hamas attacks against Israel during the 2008 oil price peak. Likewise Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980 and Libya’s repeated incursions into Chad also happened during the peaks of the oil prices in the 1970s and 1980s.

Wait a sec. Those Latin America examples are lumped in with the Iran-Iraq war, which killed half a million people? Expelling ambassadors is certainly an interstate dispute but it is definitely not militarized. Plus, Nicolás Maduro just expelled more even after oil prices dropped significantly.

Venezuela's "mobilization for war" requires a lot of context. First, it was in response to Colombia bombing Ecuador with U.S. assistance. Second, it was so obviously a publicity stunt that Colombia didn't even bother responding. Alvaro Uribe was president at the time and hated Chávez, yet knew Chávez was trolling him.

What this suggests to me is that the analysis needs to break "interstate disputes" into different categories based on severity. Given the lack of militarized disputes in Latin America, I think that would provide much more fine-grained comparative results.
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So it seems even Batman was interested in U.S.-Latin American Relations. My kids periodically flip around old TV shows, and out of nowhere I heard this line of dialogue:

And in Wayne Manor stately residence of millionaire Bruce Wayne and his youthful ward, Dick Grayson.

He's just come in, sir.

I'll get him for you.

I thought Lima was the capital of Ecuador.

Now as you can see, I was right.

It's the capital of Peru.

Oh, I just love this game of capitals.

It's so educational.

Not only that, if we don't know about our friends to the south how can we carry on our good neighbor policy? - Ahem.

I have never heard the Good Neighbor Policy mentioned in any form in pop culture so it really caught my attention. But then I had to shake my head because the episode was produced in 1966, a point at which the Good Neighbor Policy had been dead and buried for many years. Within the past 12 years the U.S. had invaded Guatemala, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. In 1964, just two years prior, the Mann Doctrine had proclaimed the U.S. no longer cared whether governments came into power by a military coup, and LBJ had encouraged the Brazilian coup that year.

I know, I know, I am criticizing Batman for historical inaccuracy. It is interesting, though, how the very positive popular view of U.S. policy diverges so much from what was actually happening.
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Friday, March 06, 2015

Truthdig has an article about how we should not listen to U.S. media accounts of Venezuela. I am assuming this also means we should not listen to non-government Venezuelan media accounts of Venezuela since they often come to similar conclusions.

Regardless, I read the article with interest to see precisely what facts were being reported that were not accurate. But it doesn't provide any, beyond repeating uncritically that Diosdado Cabello claimed Antonio Ledezma was part of a coup plot. Instead, what it does is assert several (to my mind) truthful but irrelevant claims:

--The NY Times editorial page was supportive of the 2002 coup--The Bush administration was supportive of the 2002 coup--The Obama and Maduro governments are adversarial, including application of US sanctions--The U.S. media treats the Mexican government with kid gloves versus Venezuela

A 13 year old coup is not evidence of inaccuracy now. That evidence would involve refutation of the facts currently being reported, but the article actually does not offer any. In fact, it criticizes The Economist for arguing that Venezuela is experiencing a slow-motion coup, even though Jose Mujica--no tool of the imperialist media--said basically the same thing.

I agree 100% about double standards with Mexico, Saudia Arabia, and any other number of places. I wish they received more critical media coverage (Saudia Arabia in particular really bothers me). But that does not mean the Venezuelan coverage is automatically inaccurate. It means the other news is inaccurate! In other words, it should be "Don't Believe Media Accounts of Saudia Arabia, Which Should Be As Bad As Venezuela."

Telesur reprints the text of a speech by Richard Gott (in honor of Hugo Chávez) on leftist military leaders. Whether or not you agree with his normative angle, this is a topic that actually does deserve greater attention. For the most part, we conflate "military" with "right-wing" but there are plenty of contrary examples in 20th and 21st century Latin American political history (even in Chile with Marmaduke Grove).

It also raises important questions about democracy. He mixes military governments and former military officers who became president, which are obviously quite different, but what are the implications? To what degree do leftist former military officers behave differently in office than those on the right?

Thursday, March 05, 2015

With Latin America, it's threat Whac-A-Mole. Check out this op-ed in CNN about China. So much ignorance out there. This is their reasoning:

Two months ago, the CELAC countries held a big meeting. Instead of going to Washington, they went to Beijing for the first formal conference between China and the region.

I am not sure why this is viewed as so threatening. As anyone should know, by definition CELAC will never meet in Washington so that is something we should never expect. If CELAC countries are desperately in need of loans so meet in China, how precisely does that threaten U.S. interests? They never say, but rather stick with the commonly held and easily refutable points about the U.S. not paying attention to Latin America.

We eat this up in the United States because we are fueled with a constant barrage of paranoia (indeed, when we make fun of Nicolás Maduro's paranoid ramblings we need to think about glass houses). By any standard, Latin America is currently the most democratic and developed it has ever been, with overall positive relations with the United States. Yet we seem desperate to find external enemies. It's like a Monroe Doctrine reflex.

Meanwhile, my own member of Congress just published a guide telling us how to survive a terrorist attack. It actually includes a picture of a mushroom cloud, I guess so you know it when you see it. It's all about fear, which bizarrely we seem to thrive on (even when I was a kid--it made me think of The Day After). If people see that as normal, no wonder they see a threat everywhere they look in Latin America. Enemies are everywhere and they're out to destroy us.
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Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Really interesting analysis from Mariana Rodríguez and Liz Zechmeister in an AmericasBarometer Topical Brief about political tolerance in Venezuela. Using LAPOP survey data, they assert the following:

What levels of public support exist for
government efforts to silence regime critics
in Venezuela? Very little, according to data
from the LAPOP AmericasBarometer. In
fact, Venezuelans rank as the most
supportive of regime critics’ political
rights in comparison with citizens of other
Latin American and Caribbean countries,
as seen in Figure 2.

Moreover, levels of political tolerance
have increased. Figure 3 displays average
support for each act within the tolerance
index and compares averages across 2012
and 2014. As can be observed, Venezuelans
have grown more tolerant since 2012 on
every dimension. In 2014, a year in which
Venezuelan politics fell into a crisis
marked by widespread protests against the
government and by political violence,
citizens expressed more support for the
right of dissenters to peacefully
demonstrate and voice their opinions, vote,
and run for public office.

These data suggest that strident moves
against opposition leaders, to the extent
that they appear to be moves designed to
silence regime critics, may further
undermine President Maduro’s popularity

For the figures, just click on the link.

I think this is fascinating. Clearly Nicolás Maduro figures that Venezuelans will be tolerant of opposition leaders being arrested, yet evidence suggests he's wrong. For all the polarization the country has experienced, it has tolerant citizens.

What this does not tell us, though, is where the breaking point might be. Maduro has been right so far about tolerance--which obviously has helped him as well--but at what point will Venezuelans say they've had enough? The opposition had hoped that the protests of a year ago marked that point, but they were wrong. In this sense, putting Leopoldo López in jail on its own wasn't enough (he didn't help his own case either). Instead, we might look at it more usefully as a gradual, iterative process. But we just don't know how many iterations are required before Venezuelans demand change from the government (or change of the government).
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Closer to home, Iran collaborates with hostile nations like Venezuela, Cuba, and Argentina, seeking to expand their influence to undermine the United States.

He finishes with a quote from the Bible to argue that Netanyahu is like Winston Churchill (no threat assessment is complete without at least an indirect reference to Hitler). The Iran-Latin America threat is pretty old and tired by now (remember how it was a pressing threat eight years ago?). But here's the funny thing. If Iran is trying to expand the influence of those three countries, it's failing miserably! Two have very unpopular leaders while the other has a elderly dictator feebly reaching out to the United States, while all three face serious economic problems.

At this point, it is impossible for Venezuela, Cuba, or Argentina--much less Iran--to do much of anything to U.S. influence in Latin America or elsewhere. For example, do you remember all the controversy about Venezuela taking a rotating seat on the UN Security Council? This was a threat! A return to the Cold War! And then...nothing. It didn't matter after all, as many of us predicted.

In sum, if you want to make an argument for Iran posing a threat, you undermine your own credibility immediately by revealing that you believe it is a threat in the Western Hemisphere.
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Monday, March 02, 2015

I'm quoted in this Bloomberg story on Nicolás Maduro's coup claims. My point was that you can only claim so many conspiracies before even your supporters--except perhaps for the most hardcore--start ignoring you. Everyone tunes you out.

Recently politically rehabilitated public television presenter Mario Silva claims that in two years more than 13,700,000 “internet psychological operations” have been generated against president Maduro.

Silva did not specify how the data was collected or what exactly is to be understood as an “internet psychological operation.” The count was made, according to Silva, by fellow Venezolana de Televisionpresenter Larissa Costa.

Once you reach this level, it just becomes background noise. Millions and millions of conspiracies are too hard to keep up with.
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Those outcomes will go largely unnoticed in the U.S. but will post further problems for Venezuela at a time when it does not need anything more.

Bizarrely, he is also prohibiting George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Marco Rubio, and a few others from obtaining visas to visit Venezuela. Rubio in particular will use that to his advantage in the primaries. The others will chuckle and make jokes about their cancelled Caracas vacations.

I can't see any benefit to Venezuela for any of these measures. It's hard to imagine them even providing Maduro a domestic nationalist boost.